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Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, on the other hand, am happy to see a non advertising based business model and thus pay for medium and find it very good value for money compared to a newspaper.

Do you have specific writers or publications on Medium you frequently read? I’d also like to support a publishing platform that doesn’t rely on advertising but it’s never even occurred to me to pay for Medium because it seems like there would just be so much crap to sift through in order to find the good stuff.

Quite a lot of medium links are on hackernews or on Google searches. I organically encounter it enough I don't need to follow anyone but I do because I also write on it.

You could follow me! https://link.medium.com/w4fPh9dzmpb

But really i don't think I actually consume content by following people . I consume content via social media or aggregators like HN and enough of that contains medium that makes it worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#172
The reason why they are successful is because they make it easy for someone to make money.

Look around you.. any platform that does this is also successful.

It’s not about censorship, Privacy, the ability to switch or “on the side of writers” etc.

They’ve made it easy for writers to collect money. Period.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#173
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I can't resist reading a dialogue, I read this now. I appreciate the summary of the book as it's written but I break with it here: "He wants a world where smart people and dull people have equally comfortable lives, and where intelligence can take its rightful place as one of many virtues which are nice to have but not the sole measure of your worth." IMO the more accurate claim is that FDB wants everyone's l…

I think Alexander and I would agree wrt the floor. Saying "equally" was probably a mistake on Alexander's part. >'FDB wants to lower the dropout age to 12; Schools guarentee that kids get to have interactions with lots of other kids, even in very rural areas; Schools guarentee parents time to themselves, to not worry about keeping their kids safe. Aren't these important points?' Yes, but 5 - 12 is still a looong time…

I guess I was reading between the lines:

p174 : "There is no such thing as a 'public charter.' 'Public' does not just denote public money but also public accountability; most charter schools are not under the control of the parents and local citizens at all and thus cannot be called public."

p177: "[T]he very competitive landscape that charters are meant to foster creates a structural bias toward dishonest practices."

All public guarantees in this modern time are going to end up with a lot of shitty conditions and outcomes, when people in power don't care about them. Maybe that's a poor reply but it's my reply. The book indeed mixes "just overthrow the culture and machines of capitalism" and "here's some reforms I like, each of which may or may not be precluded by the overthrowy bit, at least a little." I think an unstated and reasonable assumption of FDB's is that if we enact these reforms, it will be because we've convinced the public that public schools and teachers are important. The ideas aren't just to put legal language on paper, they are cultural reforms advanced through appeals to compassion ("As a socialist, my interest lies in expanding the degree to which the community takes responsibility each all of its members, in deepening our societal commitment to ensuring the wellbeing of everyone.") Did the gay and lesbian community get marriage legalized by just crafting the most perfect bill texts?

It's hard to deny that leftism is in a confused way right now. They (generally, not deBoer afaik) think prostitution is liberating!

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#174
post #106
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Anti-censorship" is hugely unpopular with the mainstream intellectual community these days. I'd disagree. It's unpopular with left-leaning mainstream audiences , but among intellectuals who write for a living, I imagine that extra assurances of not getting kicked off the platform are rather attractive.

>It's unpopular with left-leaning mainstream audiences It is truly wild how HN often frames censorship as something coming purely from the left while ignoring the laws coming out of conservative state legislatures across the country. There is a wide spectrum of people both pushing for censorship and pushing against it.

On the right, banning books means trying to prevent their kids from reading them. But on the left it often means trying to prevent anyone from reading them.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1515563419386191880

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#175
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources that indicate anti-censorship is “hugely unpopular” with the mainstream intellectual community? For example, esteemed scientists speaking out against it? It may be important here to separate journalists and political activists from the intellectual community. Not to say that they aren’t intellectuals, but the issue could be limited to that set of intellectuals in particular.

See NYT "hit" pieces on substack: * https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/business/media/substack-n... * https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/business/media/substack-g... Along with one of Substack's founders responding to it: https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1514318085083340807

Thanks for sharing these. From what I can see, the criticism here is coming entirely from journalists/activists.

It makes me wonder: how many of the opinions that we are exposed to originate from journalists/activists? How much are we mixing up the opinions of these people as representing the opinions of scientists, engineers and philosophers? How much are we mixing up the opinions of journalists/activists as representing those of your average person?

I'm starting to see a deep issue with the preeminence of journalist/activist opinion.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#177
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Left and right censorship are applied to very different media. In the case of online platforms, the most visible attempts of censorship are coming from the left. At least I haven't heard of any opposite examples.

When one form of censorship is coming from private companies and the other form of censorship is coming from the government, I am definitely more concerned about the latter than the former.

When an online platform is a de-facto monopoly, like Twitter or Facebook, I don't think it should be unilaterally censoring user content. I understand that content policy is a difficult problem, but I don't think "they are a private company they can do whatever they want" is the right answer.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#178
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's unpopular with left-leaning mainstream audiences It is truly wild how HN often frames censorship as something coming purely from the left while ignoring the laws coming out of conservative state legislatures across the country. There is a wide spectrum of people both pushing for censorship and pushing against it.

What is insane is when people frame anti-censorship as an alt-right value. That offends people like me who are staunchly liberal but completely anti-censorship to my core.

Is there an example of a thriving online community that has absolutely no censorship? One gets the sense that once a platform commits publicly to never censor, it's overrun by people with extreme opinions, and the platform loses more reasonable people, who actually are the largest majority.
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